"How to Rewire Your Brain to Pay Attention Again"
Dr. Dominic Ng wonderfully explains dopamine and why phones are so bad for us and how to learn to pay attention again:
Dopamine isn't the satisfaction you feel after a good meal - it's the hunger that drives you to hunt for the food in the first place.
Your brain evolved in a world where survival depended on finding things that were hidden. Imagine a hunter-gatherer approaching a berry bush:
- Guaranteed reward (he knows it's full of fruit): Zero dopamine spike. The reward was predicted, so the brain stays flat.
- Guaranteed failure (he knows it's empty): Zero dopamine spike.
- Uncertain reward (he doesn't know what's there): He pushes the leaves aside, finds berries—massive dopamine spike.
That spike is called a Reward Prediction Error. It's not contentment; it's a learning signal. The chemical explosion screams: We didn't expect that! That was valuable! Remember this and do it again.
This mechanism turned your ancestors into relentless investigators. The ones who compulsively checked uncertain sources found more food, survived longer, and passed that "checking gene" down to you.
Infinite scroll exploits this perfectly. Because occasionally a video is amazing or a notification is exciting, your brain learns a powerful lesson: I need to check all of them.
Your brain keeps checking because it never knows which scroll will pay off - and that uncertainty is exactly what keeps it hooked.
What does he advise?
- Reclaim transition moments: "Walking to the bathroom. Waiting for coffee. Standing in line. Notice how often you reach for your phone in these gaps. Try leaving it in your pocket."
- Go offline at the same time every day: "This isn't about going monk mode - it's about giving your brain a predictable stretch of quiet each day. The consistency matters more than the length."
- Cut back on high-stimulation apps: What apps qualify?
- "You open it to "just check" without a specific task"
- "The content changes every time you refresh or scroll"
- "You intend to spend two minutes but lose twenty"
- Pre-load your environment: Leave a book by the couch and your bed. Listen to a podcast or audiobook on your commute, don't scroll. Block distracting sites on your computer.